Global pharmaceutical company Pfizer has been at the cutting edge of healthcare innovation for more than 150 years. In a recent panel discussion at WIRED Health 2017, the multinational illustrated how it is partnering with tech giants and innovators to lead the way in putting state-of-the-art technologies such as Artificial intelligence (AI) at the centre of the healthcare industry. AI’s potential fields of application are endless, spanning from drug discovery to clinical trials, to diagnosis and patient care. Following the talk, WIRED Insider caught up with group president of Pfizer Innovative Health Albert Bourla to get more details about what lies ahead.

WIRED Insider: What does the explosion of AI mean for the healthcare industry?

First and foremost, it means we have more information available to us than ever before, which opens boundless potential for improving patient outcomes around the world. AI has given our researchers new tools to manage avalanches of medical information, and that help us make connections the human mind might never be able to establish, and very quickly.

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It is worth underlining, however, that AI is mainly about digesting and sifting through the flood of new information in order to identify promising places for humans to look at. Once the AI has done its work, we'll still need scientists to look at the findings and carry out actual experimentation, which is required to produce breakthrough medicine.

Right now, Pfizer is working with IBM Watson to fuel immuno-oncology research – which means harnessing the body's immune system to fight tumours. The best way to do that is using some combination of agents to spur the immune system into action. But possible combinations are countless, so the greatest challenge is to find ways to narrow the field and predict what combinations might be more effective. Thanks to Watson, which has been trained with historical data, we’re trying to predict the winning combination.

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What makes for successful collaborations in health and technology?

The most important thing is to realise that it is a collaboration. Technology isn’t a substitute for health expertise, and vice versa. It is shaping our future, opening new possibilities for creating breakthrough medicines and vaccines. However, every partnership needs to serve fundamental core values.When it comes to healthcare companies, they have to keep putting patients at the forefront, so technologies we adopt must have a patient-centric purpose, too. The tech partners we work with have to agree philosophically with putting patients first. Beyond that, the foundation of every collaboration is a certain excitement about the possibility to create something new: we do see these collaborations as key drivers to transform global health, one patient at the time.

How do you evaluate technologies to pursue – do you start with the health or science problem and seek out the technological solution, or does it sometimes work the other way around when you learn about a technological capability?

We always start with our ultimate goal: to deliver value and improve outcomes for patients around the world. We want to do this by using digital tools, wearable devices, the Internet of Things (IoT) cognitive and other forms of advanced analytics. Our strategy centres around empowering patients by providing digital and analytic capabilities to improve patient experience, knowledge, understanding of their diseases and conditions, building a better relationship between them and healthcare providers, and ultimately allowing them to participate in the decisions that create and guide their pathways to treatment. Once we know this is the goal, we want to explore all possible solutions

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I'll give you a couple of examples. Alzheimer's is the second most feared illness in the US, and among the top ten causes of death in that country. It cannot be prevented, cured or even slowed. A key headwind in our effort to develop solutions to Alzheimer's is the difficulty to detect early signs before it progresses and it's too late. With that in mind, together with Akili Interactive Labs, we're testing the potential of a mobile video game that would help detect cognitive differences in healthy elderly people at risk of developing Alzheimer's' disease. As a result, we can catch the disease early enough so that we can try to experiment with new products on this population.

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What do you think are the most exciting advances in delivering patient-centric care?

First of all the diversity of new data sources is very exciting. We're using sensors and IoT to get real-time patient data, which helps us gauge how drugs work best in patients, adjust dosing to different kinds of patients by monitoring in real-time how they are reacting, and make it easier for doctors to check on their patients, without leaving their homes.

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Crowdsourcing also presents enormous possibilities, especially for emotional support. It is an avenue we would have never dreamt of using only ten years ago, but it has produced valuable new treatments: for example we have used digital capabilities to supports patients and their families – through their disease – and we have created a community-driven mobile app called Quitter’s Circle to help smokers kick their habit.

How is Pfizer using new technologies to create a more personalised healthcare experience for patients?

We are relying on true state-of-the-art systems of sensors, mobile devices, computer analysis. We're looking to give real-time, around the clock symptoms information to clinicians and researchers. This will give a complete view of a patient’s well-being, by measuring a variety of health indicators such as how they move, how they sleep, insights into daily activity such as grooming, dressing, eating – since we know that numerous diseases can affect those daily activities.

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In 2016, for example, IBM and Pfizer announced a first-of-its-kind research collaboration to employ monitoring tools to allow clinicians deliver care to patients with Parkinson's disease. Through smart spoons or smarts pens fitted with sensors, we can detect the tremors which characterise Parkinson’s, and alert clinicians.

In what ways can new technologies improve the quality of patient care, reduce inefficiencies, and transform the medical field?

The most important thing about technology is that it allows us to work faster, and better understand complexity. The massive amounts of data we have now have access to are allowing us – among other things – to automate part of the clinical trial process and help patients find the clinical trials that are right for them. We're using digital mobile applications, IoT, sensors and wearables to enable more productive patient consultation, and increase physician engagement.

For instance, we created a pain-tracking wearable that enables patients to report their levels of pain – its intensity and frequency over the day – and which allows doctors to adjust the treatment accordingly.

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What areas within health do you think are going to see the most immediate disruption?

That's a million dollar question. If I had to guess I’d say gene editing, immuno-oncology, and big data analytics. In gene editing, technology will accelerate progress towards the prevention of HIV, infections, genetic diseases like haemophilia, and even some types of cancer. In immuno-oncology, we expect to see tremendous advances towards treating cancer. Big data analytics are set to revolutionise how we diagnose diseases and conduct clinical trials: it's a new way for patients and clinicians to come together, monitor progresses and find new treatments.